WHITTLE FOLK TREE NOGGINS are faces carved into basswood tree branches three to six inches tall.  In a previous posting https://woodbeecarver.com/?p=1860 Tree Noggins were featured.  This posting will be simply a gallery of the latest Tree Noggins carved  using a knife  made by Charles Simpson of Alabama made with Personna floor scraper blade as pictured in the photograph to the left. Read the rest of this entry »

The Old Carver’s Law says, “Leave no wood uncarved,” so it became a challenge to carve faces out of a hard maple bottle topper on English Leather bottles.  Using the knife  in front of the bottles  in the photograph which was made by Charles Simpson out of Personna floor scraper blades, a slicing cut was required with every cut in this very hard wood.  Besides the hardness of the wood, the challenge is also to carve a different looking face with each carving.  Such a challenge is a way to learn to carve faces as every face carved becomes another learning experience that fulfills the saying: “The more one carves the better one carves.” Read the rest of this entry »

The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver with the photograph at the left representative of the various knives used in Whittle-Carving.  On the right are two pocket knives representative of the very first and most often used knives for carving.  The two knives on the left are small handled pocket knives that have been “tinkered” with larger wooden handles.  The knives in the center represent custom made knives that are also used in the carving process.  The top and the fourth down are Ralph E. Long knives.  The second knife was made by good friend Larry Piety.  The third knife down is an old Herb Dunkle knife and the bottom knife was made by Dave Lyons.  Even though each of these knives are adequate for carving, yet making one’s own knife is a fun project. Read the rest of this entry »

ELKHORN III was carved out a three and half inch square by eight and half inch tall block of butternut with traditional carving tools.  Boiled linseed oil is the main finish with a coat of Deft brushing lacquer to protect the oil finish.  Wood burning highlighted some areas with darker coloration.  A butternut base was carved into an oval shape with tool marks giving random texture so that the eye does not stop at hard lines making the base non-descript.  Read the rest of this entry »

A two day class in Whittle-Carving was held August 7 and 8, 2010 at the Ashland Area Woodcarvers meeting location in the Steelworkers Hall.  Twelve members of the club participated in the class of learning to carve using only a knife.  Pictured in the photographs are left of  club sign, Gina Woods and right of the  club sign is Jeff Reihs.  In the middle row are left to right: Pat Ramey, Allen Woods, Rick Eskins and Henry Ramey.  In the back row are left to right: Roy Prince, Ed Brown, Jerry Prince, Guy Purcell, Butch Myers and Charlie Brown. Read the rest of this entry »

MINIATURE Carvings are normally under two inches tall and for competition purposes must fit within a two inch cube including the base.  The three Miniatures in the photograph at the left begin on the left with I. B. Whittled (two inch tall) in center is Jughead (one and three eighths of inch tall) and Santa head on golf tee (two inches tall).  Each were carved using only the tip end of a knife blade.

The very tip end of any blade that comes to a quick point is the detail blade portion of the entire blade as only a fraction of the blade is doing the carving.  The next series of photographs show several Miniatures and the knife that carved the miniature figure using only the tip end of the blade. Read the rest of this entry »

SCRAPPER – Bobble Heads are whimsical carvings done only with a knife using scraps of wood, thus the name “SCRAPPER”.  The Old Carvers Law states: “Leave no wood uncarved,” so Scrappers developed as a way to utilize small scraps of wood as a novelty and fun carving.  There is no practical use for these Scrapper Bobble Heads other than they provide a way to practice carving faces while using scrap pieces of wood that this Old Carver finds is hard to throw away.  It is like the fellow who bought a new boomerang and could not throw his old one away. Read the rest of this entry »